In the prior art, manufacturers of various snacks as well as manufacturers of candies, cereals, or other products often place a coupon into the bag or box during the packaging process. The coupons are formed as a reel of coupons or as a continuous fold, and a pair of breaking rollers are adapted to separate adjacent coupons; thereafter, the individual coupon is directed into the package prior to the package-filling and sealing process. Most commonly, the coupons are used with food packages but are not limited to food.
Being a two-dimensional (2-D) item, the coupons may be separated and subsequently fed into the respective packages at moderate speeds without repeated jamming.
Problems have been encountered, when attempting to sever a three-dimensional (3-D) premium item from a chain, strip or bandolier of 3-D items and directing the item into a package during the packaging process.
For example, the package may comprise a bag of potato chips, pretzels, nachos or the like; and the 3-D item may consist of a small sealed pouch containing a condiment such as salsa or ketchup or, possibly, a sample of a different snack intended for market research purposes. These items are commonly called premium items.
The premiums are frequently, but not necessarily, overwrapped into a bandolier for indexing. The premium item may comprise an item such as a toy intended for a child. In this case, for hygienic reasons and to meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements, or to prevent contamination or inadvertent injury to the child, the toy or other item may be "overwrapped" that is, sealed within a plastic sleeve or pouch. Typically, these products are produced by an overseas manufacturer and shipped in bulk to an "overwrapper" who, in turn, produces a continuous bandolier of overwrapped items. Within the bandolier, adjacent items are separated by a seam which is usually heat-sealed.
Due to cost considerations, the overwrap is made with the least expensive material possible which may result in problems in that the individual premium items may not be completely sealed and may be non-uniform in orientation within the overwrap. The bandolier of items frequently has very broad tolerances.
Regardless of the particular 3-D item and its intended purpose, and whether or not the 3-D item is overwrapped, and despite the technical sophistication and the highly developed state-of-the-art in the packaging industry, the 3-D item thickness, length, size and/or configuration makes it extremely difficult to continuously feed these items, one by one, into the packages under standard industry production rates.
The apparatus and methods of making container packages in continuous bandoliers or strips and separating individual units from the strip have been disclosed in earlier patents.
Generally, the bandoliers may be classified into three types:
1. A perforated seam is formed between the individual units. Since the plastic of the bandolier is comparatively thin for purposes of economy, the seam may inadvertently tear as the bandolier is being pulled, processed and introduced into the separating apparatus. PA1 2. A hole or slot is formed in the seam and indexed on a pin feed to align the bandolier prior to cutting the seam with a knife. This requires a more complex apparatus with more moving parts. PA1 3. An uninterrupted seam is formed between the individual units and a knife edge is used to sever the seam.
Most of the prior art has been directed to the formation of bags or packages which use clamping or sealing tools to form seams between individual units. Examples of these are in U.S. Pat. No. 2,259,866 Stokes, U.S. Pat. No. 4,729,210 Galliano and U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,479 Lemke et al.
Long in U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,591 does not use a bag-making apparatus but is directed to an article dispenser. The patent discloses a dispenser for a continuous strip of articles which has two grippers with cantilevered arms, one gripper positioned on each side of the strip. The grippers move upstream and downstream to advance the strip and one gripper gripping the end article moves through the open arms of the other gripper. This is similar to the bagging apparatus of Galliano which has been adapted to separation. The device is for continuous motion of the strip and is geared for high speed operation. The device is complex because of the speed-matching devices and the number of moving parts and is comparatively expensive. Also, potential problems arise when used in an adverse environment such as the packaging of potato chips where there is heat, grease and particulates, the durability and reliability is reduced.